Medical procedures typically generate contaminated, hazardous waste materials. Although contaminated metal tools may be sterilised by chemical and thermal treatments for re-use, many other contaminated waste items are not re-used, commonly being designed as disposable items. Such single use hazardous waste items commonly includes so-called “sharps”, such as syringe needles.
Contaminated items are commonly collected in dedicated sealed hazardous waste containers for subsequent removal by licensed processors of hazardous waste, who commonly incinerate the waste or melt and dispose of by landfill. Such hazardous waste containers fill quickly, particular when used to collect rigid and/or irregularly shaped items, which necessitates the use of large numbers of containers, requiring a correspondingly large facility for their storage prior to their collection, and significant costs for collection and disposal of such numbers of containers.